This page is some notes and jottings on the day to day happenings, random thoughts and general discussion.
The diary started out with good intentions in June 2000 when we first saw the house in Monson Road advertised. After about 3 months things got a bit mundane, so the entries came to an end. However, re-reading the text almost 3 years later does bring back some happy memories.
Scroll down for the diary from June to October 2000. Some other events can be found on the News Page
Click Here to get back to the Index Page
Sunday 22nd October - Start of the new Diary Page.
Today the plan is to get the shed converted into a usable workshop. This will provide me with a place to potter out of the rain and escape the pressures of life.
The shed is only 8' x 6' so the key to this project is organisation ... and storage.
Eighteen months ago, I had a single garage and an adjoining 25' x 12' brick built workshop, but unfortunately these had to go when we sold the flat and I was forced to minimise my possessions (junk) to fit into a single garage at the rented house.
On purchasing Monson Road, there is no garage and no vehicular access to the back garden down the side passage - unless your car is only 3' wide! There are however 2 sheds and a greenhouse all measuring 8' x 6'.
The older shed is very dilapidated and will be ceremoniously cremated next year when I get the proper workshop - in the meantime it is rainproof and offers storage space for much of my equipment (junk).
The newer of the sheds is in good condition and clean inside. There is now a 6' x 2' workbench on the right as you go in, and a combined lathe/mill on the left. A strorage unit at the far end hold my stock of metal.
Shelves and racks have been built to hold as many of the useful tools within easy reach - an idea that I attribute to my good friend Roy Darlington - who is the expert at cramming masses of stuff into a small space and still be able to work - Thanks Roy.
Lighting and power is installed, and the power feed to the shed will be protected by an RCD. In my 35 years I have never had a serious mains electric shock - and I don't intend to start now.
The shed is close to the bathroom back wall, and next weekend I will fit an outside tap and possibly an old sink - so tht I can wash my oilly mitts without having to come into the house. I also want to rig up a rainwater diverter into a 40 gallon water-butt and have a gravity assisted rainwater feed via a hose to the bottom of the garden - useful for watering the plants in the greenhouse without having to lug water 150'.
The shed is destined to be my mechanical workshop where I do all the oily work. The combined lathe/mill will be suitable for turning, drilling and milling and takes up less room than if I had separate machines. It has a long bed and large swing so it can handle fairly large jobs. I wanted a machine which could swing a 12" flywheel or cut flanges for large bore cylinders without exceeding its capacity.
Organisation is the key to success, and this has meant getting proper homes for all the vatious components and metal stock. Fortunately I have acquired a few old drawers over the years and thes contain the various metal stock. As simple a ABC - aluminium, brass, bronze, cast iron, copper, dural, ferrous, gold etc. I also have a wide range of stainless steel containers from salt pots to stock pans, and these have been acquired over the years for incorporating into Stirling engine designs.
A simple brazing hearth and propane blow-torch will allow soft soldering and silver soldering work to be done with relative ease.
Because of the restricted size of the workspace - everything is literally at arm's length. It also means that I have either the feed handle of the lathe or the bench vice handle up my butt if I am not careful!
As I progress, I hope to invest in some sand casting equipment. The greenhouse seems the obvious site - as I am less likely to set it on fire, and the sand can be stored in a box in one of the beds and kept moist.
I have recenly read an article on cupola iron smelting furnaces - and these seem like a pretty impressive bit of home made kit. The link to the Cupola furnace site is here.
In the 16th Century it was widely believed that there were Four Elements that made up the whole known Universe. These elements were Fire, Water, Earth and Air, and combinations of the four would produce all the commonplace substances and also explain the physical effects when the elements interreacted with one another.
Well we have come a long way since the dark days of alchemy, but it is interesting to note that some of our most potent forms of energy are produced by the interraction between fire, water and air contained in vessels made from metals derived from earth. For example, steam turbines, internal combustion engines, hydroelectric power etc.
Ohere is one device which really makes use of all four elements and is the Stirling Cycle engine.
First you make a metal cylinder by smelting a certain type of earth with fire. - we'll skip the intro and cut to the important bit
You heat up one end of the cylinder with fire and you cool the other end with water. The air contained in the cylinder is alternately heated and cooled and as a result it expands and contracts and pushes and pulls on a piston which turns a wheel and does mechanical work.
You can then pump water or pulverise earth or whatever task you wish - and thus start an Industrial Revolution which will bring you out of the Dark Ages.
All the processes for making a Stirling Cycle engine were known to the Western world since Mediaeval times. Armour makers could easily have made cylinders from beaten iron plates. Cannon founders could make cylinders cast in bronze. But it was not to be - it took another 500 years for the likes of Savery, Newcomen, Watt, Caley and Stirling to bring all the pieces of the jigsaw together and make a reliable source of mechanical power. And the rest is just history ........
For more information on Stirling Cycle Engines - just Click!
For an aerial photograph of Monson Road - check out the following link:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?grid2map?X=527907&Y=151884&arrow=Y&zoom=1&largeuk=P
June 2000.
Thursday 22nd June 2000.
View property at 50 Monson Road at 7pm on a damp Thursday evening. Impressed by large room sizes and long narrow back garden. Asking price of �124,500 was on the limits of what Elaine and I could afford.
Friday 23rd June 2000.
Contacted Direct Line Mortgages, with view to financing 50 Monson Road. They gave an immediate agreement in principle, subject to valuation and arranged necessary documentation. I then contacted the estate agents in Horley, and made an offer of �123,500. This was accepted later on the Friday morning, so I then contacted my solicitor to prepare the necessary forms for the conveyancing. I then phoned Elaine to say that I had just bought the house, and fortunately she thought I had done the right thing.
Saturday 24th June 2000.
Revisited the property during the afternoon to get a better look at the rooms and features in daylight. Measured up all the rooms and produced a rough sketch. Elaine joined me later at the property and we had a good second look around - just to make sure it was the right place for us.
Monday 26th June 2000.
Surveyor from Countrywide Surveyors produced valuation report on the property.
Wednesday 28th June 2000.
Received valuation report placing a value of �123,500 on the property - could this be a coincidence?
Friday 30th June.
Rearranged finance with Direct Line mortgages for a loan of �110,000 leaving us to find a deposit of �12,500 and a few thousand for solicitors fees, land registry and stamp duty.
Saturday 31st June 2000
Paid �240 into Elaine's savings account to leave a small sum in the account after having withdrawn the bulk of the savings.
July 2000
Tuesday 3rd July 2000
Returned Elaine's National Savings book to Glasgow office to make a withdrawal of �8500 on 3rd August
Saturday 7th July 2000.
Visited Rob in Somerset and arranged to borrow some cash for a three year term.
August 2000
Friday 18th August 2000
Visited Tooting in the morning and completed on the Monson Road house at 11am. Arranged to pick up the keys shortly after 2pm at the agents in Horley.
Arrived at the property armed with a box of cleaning materials and the Dyson vacuum cleaner. Hoovered all of the rooms and began to clean the kitchen. Removed the two wall cabinets and banished them to the old shed. Scrubbed all the kitchen surfaces clean of their coating of grease and nicotine ready for painting on Saturday. Stripped all the old vinyl wallpaper from the back sitting room walls before going back to Tadworth - knackered.
Saturday 19th August 2000.
More cleaning in the kitchen and then painted the walls in egg yolk yellow emulsion and the ceilings in brilliant white. George came round an helped clean the WC and the cooker with Elaine. Paddy, Zoe and Georgia visited for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Carried on with cleaning and painting.
Sunday 20th August
Got up early and started painting the second coats of yellow in the kitchen. George arrived about 9:30am and we demolished the front garden wall in order to get 2 cars onto the drive. Elaine arrived later and we set about cleaning the bathroom.
Visited Wilkinsons in Sutton to stock up on more household stuff and then collected our new kitten from Montagu Gardens, Wallington. "Monty" visited his new home for the first time.
Monday 21st August.
Waited for BT Engineer to arrive and install second telephone line into back office. Found some old china, ornaments and a very rusty Singer sewing machine in the attic.
Elaine arrived about 11:30 and we started gloss painting the doors.
I returned to work for the afternoon and then we made three double trips with cars stacked full of boxes from Tadworth. Got back to Tadworth about 00:45am.
Tuesday 22nd August.
Elaine continued to pack up the belongings into boxes so that we could make more return trips on Tuesday night. By 11pm the Tadworth house was clear of most of our clutter, and Monson Road was filling up nicely.
Wednesday 23rd August 2000.
Moving Day!! - day off work to handle the move. A couple of early trips down to Monson Road before the removals Luton van turned up at about 11:30am. By 12:15 we had emptied the house in Fleetwood Close, and I travelled down in the Peugeot with a load of last minute items and plants.
The Luton showed up about 10minutes later and by 1:45pm all the furniture was in the new house. Now the small job of finding homes for all of it.
Went out at 7pm for some fish and chips and celebrated with a bottle of Blossom Hill red wine. Noticed that Elaine's car tax was nearly 5 months out of date - Whoops.
Thurday 24th August.
Tidying Day - Another day off work to recover from Moving Day! Visited Wickes for some more tall storage shelf units and bough some carpet tiles for the back sitting room at B&Q in Leaterhead. Bought additional shelving for the kitchen and bathroom. Spent afternoon assembling pine units and screwfixing to walls.
Friday 25th August
Elaine painted 2 doors in gloss and the hallway got its first coat of brilliant white emulsion.
Saturday 26th August
Painted stairwell and hallway got second coat of brilliant white emulsion. Removed offensive hall carpet
Sunday 27th August
Started on compost bin made from 5 old pallets. Built up basic bin shape which needs to be lined with old carpet.
Went to Harveys in Crawley to get some new curtains for the front bedroom.
Anne and Dave arrived about 4pm and had guided tour of the manor. Went out for meal at Blue Anchor tadworth and then celebrated the new house with a bottle of Champagne on our return.
Monday 28th August - Bank Holiday.
Finished off lining the compost bin with old carpet - a bit smelly. Cleaned out all the old vegetation from greenhouse and deposited it into the composter. Began to dig the very end plot of the garden and remove any nettle roots and the Japanese Weed herb tubers.
Measured out the back garden - it is 201' from the back sitting room wall to the end boundary fence. This reduces to 182' (55.5m) if you measure from the back of the bathroom wall.
September 2000
Saturday 2nd September.
Tore up the living room carpet and banished it to the back yard.
Fitted the new blue carpet tiles in the hall.
Phil and Clair came to visit for a meal and an overnight stay.
Sunday 3rd September
Evenings drawing in quite chilly now needed central heating for first time.
Tuesday 4th September.
Schools went back today and I consequently got stuck in a 15 minute jam at the top of Wray lane. Will take to leaving at 7:15 in order to beat the School's traffic.
Wednesday 6th September
Investigated the Monson Road Working Mens (Social) Club and paid �6 membership fees. Had a good pint of Guinness and a couple of Courage best bitters.
Friday 8th September.
Dave Fitzpatrick came over and moved the cooker gas point back to its original position. This allows the fridge and freezer stack to fit into the kitchen
Saturday 9th September.
Finally took the old living room carpet to the Earlswood dump.
Adjusted the central heating timeswitch to give a more sensible heating pattern. 6 till 8 in the morning and 4pm till 10pm in the evening.
Quick trip over to Dorking to get a suspension knuckle joint for Elaine's Metro
Adrian, Sarah and Charlie came across from Farncombe. Had a reasonable meal in the Feathers, Merstham - which was unusually quiet for a Saturday lunchtime.
Spent a couple of hours stripping off the backing paper in the living room.
Went to an "Adult Night" at the social club, which consisted of some Jim Davidson and Mike Reid videos. Enjoyed a few laughs and a few beers with Elaine.
Sunday 10th September
Warm, brilliant sunshine - could be an Indian Summer
Overslept till 9 and missed a good hour of excellent weather.
Erected a new temporary washing line across the back grass in a more sunnier position than the back yard.
Continued to dig the vegetable plots at the bottom of the garden. Very hot and very sweaty work but worth it as the soil is excellent in this area. Beds form a natural mound so will be slightly raised above the path level.
Elaine enjoying the sunshine in her new lounger chair. Took some photos of the excavations. Almost to hot to dig.
Elderberries in full swing - must try and get a recipe for wine.
Took Elaine's Metro down to Colin for MOT service tomorrow.
Tuesday 19th September
Bought 11 rolls of 100mm glass fibre loft insulation � sufficient to insulate the main section of the loft.
Wednesday 20th September.
Took a day off work to do some jobs at home, and receive some building materials. Began hoovering the grime from between the rafters in the loft.
Dyson cleaner could not cope with the extremely fine dust. Despite washing, the filters become blocked in just 5-10 minutes. Filters for DC04 unavailable in Redhill after extended wild-goose chase.
Gave up with Dyson, but ordered new filters anyway. Managed to lay only one roll of insulation. Will collect old Vax from Nigel�s garage and try with that.
Resorted to other main job for the day �removing the polystyrene ceiling tiles from the back sitting room. This took about 3 hours.
Plasterboard and loft flooring panels arrived about 4pm.
Thursday 21st September
Collected Vax and found that it was much better. Carried on Vaxing and laying insulation, managed to get another 4 rolls down.
Friday 22nd September
Bought additional 5 rolls of 150mm insulation to do the loft space above the office room. Continued Vaxing and laying insulation till 10:30pm. Went down the club for some well earned refreshment.
Saturday 23rd September.
George and I lifted 6 more flooring panels up to the loft and got them laid aling the party-wall furthest from the hatch. Loft very hot because of exceptional sunshine. New boiler suit far too hot to work in.
After a break we then started on fixing the plasterboard to the back sitting room ceiling. Paddy arrived a bout 1pm to help out with the nailing. Nicknamed him Mezzanine Morrison, due to his ability to stand on the table and not have to duck down to avoid the ceiling � shortarses do have their uses after all!
Decided to get quote for re-skimming walls with plaster � this would save messing about with crosslining paper and give the room the best possible starting point for redecoration.
Fireplace/chimney breast to be widened by 2� each side to conceal pipes and new electrical wiring. Brings width to 5� exactly and covers a multitude of sins. Allows space for TV aerial, phone connection and additional power points without having to chase channels in the walls for conduit.
Tidied up the shed to allow more tea chests to be stored against the wall. Will collect more stuff form Nigel�s tomorrow. Identified requirement for some organisation in the DIY equipment and tool storage. Will try to get shed fully functional with power and lighting, and storage organised into neat, tidy and rememberable locations.
Sunday 24th September.
Rather a bad hangover this morning. Got into work about 10:15 to continue with documentation on latest products.
Had some lunch and felt much better, well enough to be inspited to write up the above diary entries.
Tuesday 26th September.
Back into the loft to continue with the hoovering, insulating, flooring saga. Laid 2 rolls of insulation, and floored over 50 square feet of flooring. Quick scrub-up then down the Club for a couple of beers.
Wednesday 27th September.
Got a call from plasterer to say he's busy till 8th November. Will have to phone around for another.
10 hits on the website - some poor soul has actually stumbled into my little slice of cyberspace.
Web -page update including introduction of "Monty -The Monson Road Cat"
Thursday 28th September.
More hoovering the loft and laid the last 2 rolls of loft insulation.
I now still have a further 5 rolls to insulate the back part of the house and improve the insulation around the water tank.
Saturday 30th September.
Really meant to put the new heater in my car today but because of idleness ended up working on the website for 6 hours.
October 2000
Sunday 1st October 2000.
Rudley awoken at 7-10 am by cat falling down stairs on loft ladder.
Today I have set aside the whole day to put a new heater in my car - a Peugeot 405 diesel estate 1994 model.
For those of you who follow the Haynes manual - well good luck because they suggest you take out the whole dashboard and steering column just to get at the heater.
After 2 hours of dismantling, I realised that if I slackened off the dashboard just enough to move it back about 3 inches I could get at the heater no problem. Total time for job 6 hours.
Total saving by not going to garage .... �300.
Total time saving, by ignoring the Haynes manual 12hrs estimated.
Monday 2nd October
Finally found a plasterer who has quoted me less that 3 months before he can start the job. Visiting on saturday to price up job. Reckons he can do it the following week - so I'd better get on with finishing the preparation work.
Tuesday 3rd October
Bought some wood to extend fireplace in back living room prior to replastering. Also bought some large bags of cat-litter as Monty is very fussy about what sort he will and will not touch (crap on).
Avoid Sainsbury's BioCatToilet as it is made from recycled newspaper, costs 3 times as much as normal stuff and the cat won't even go near it!
The packet does say that it is compostable - so I guess it's going straight onto the compost heap - unused!
Wednesday 4th October.
Monty's first day out in the back garden. Got home early so as to witness the cat outside for the first time.
He took it OK but very quickly escaped into next door's garden and refused to come back. Took some pictures of this momentous ocasion in this small cat's life.
Spent the evening nailing upbattens to fix plasterboard to - retired at 10pm with a couple of glasses of red plonk. These are still going down well even as I type.
Saturday 14th October.
Plasterer is coming on Monday to skim the walls and ceiling of the back living room. Pipework and new elctrical outlets have to be boxed in first.
There is a very slow leak from the cenral heating system valve and I will need to drain the system to do this.
It can wait until tomorrow when I get a full day to turn the heating off.
Sunday 15th October.
Plaster has rung to say he cannot start until Tuesday. George is coming over on Monday morning to help fix the slow leak.
Monday 16th October.
Drained down CH system and replaced the leaking pressure release valve. Refilled system and bled the air from the radiators.
Finished off the plasterboard boxing in ready for plastering. Disconnected and made safe any electrics. Put screws back into any fixing holes which are still needed.
Tuesday 17th October.
Plasterer has skimmed about 50% of the walls and 75 % of the ceiling.
He should finish easly by tomorrow. The quality of the work is excellent - Novum Plastering, East Grinstead. 01342 410748.
Wednesday 18th October.
The back living room is now fully plastered and we have a smooth flat surface ready for repainting.
The cost of this sort of renovation is about �400 to �500 per room which includes new plasterboard ceiling, reskimmed walls and ceiling and repainting.
If organised, a room could be renovated in a week to 10 days.
We now have to wait a couple of weeks for the plaster to dry out fully. Windows opened to let the condensation escape.
The weather this week has been wet almost every day - not very good for drying plaster.
Saturday 21st October.
Today my shed gets a makeover! - Collected workbench and other equipment from Tadworth and installed in the newer of the 2 sheds.
It should be possible to get the bench, the Chester lathe/mill and adequate storage all into the shed which measures 8'x6'.
Invested in new propane gas torch ready for some serious metal work.
More rain has hampered moving things between sheds and tidying up the rubbish.